Sep 01, 2005

(CIDRAP News)  A 58-year-old Vietnamese has died of a probable case of avian influenza, the first such fatality in a month, news services reported today.

The victim, a Hanoi resident who was not named, died Aug 24 and tested positive for an H5 virus, according to an Agence France-Presse (AFP) report quoting Nguyen Tran Hien, director of an epidemiology institute in Hanoi.

Dec 07, 2005

Editor's note: This story was revised Dec 8 to correct the erroneous statement that the World Health Organization had confirmed two more deaths from avian influenza (rather than two cases.)

(CIDRAP News)  The World Health Organization (WHO) has confirmed two more human cases of avian influenza, one in China and a fatal one in Indonesia, bringing the global total to 135 cases with 69 deaths in nearly 2 years.

Dec 09, 2005

(CIDRAP News)  Two more human cases of H5N1 avian influenza have been confirmed, one in a Chinese woman who has recovered and the other in a 5-year-old Thai boy who died Dec 7, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced today.

The cases increase the human toll of the virus over the past 2 years to 137 cases, including 70 deaths, according to the WHO. Exposure to poultry is the suspected cause in both of the latest cases.

Dec 20, 2005

(CIDRAP News)  Laboratory tests in Indonesia indicated that an 8-year-old boy who died Dec 15 had avian influenza, making him potentially the country's 11th victim of the disease, Indonesian officials reported yesterday.

The local test results were awaiting confirmation by a World Health Organization (WHO) reference lab in Hong Kong, Hariadi Wibisono of the Indonesian health ministry told Bloomberg News.

Jan 05, 2006

Jan 6, 2006 (CIDRAP News)  2005 is likely to go down as the year when avian influenza, powered by a steady rise in human cases and the spread of poultry outbreaks all the way to Eastern Europe, emerged as a high-profile global health issue.

When 2005 dawned, only 45 human cases of H5N1 avian flu, including 32 deaths, had been counted by the World Health Organization (WHO). All of those were in Vietnam and Thailand.

Jun 19, 2006

(CIDRAP News )  An H5 avian influenza virus was found in a dead gosling in a backyard flock in eastern Canada late last week, but authorities said today there is "no evidence" that the virus is the deadly H5N1 strain.

Meanwhile, Hungary was culling poultry following the recent confirmation of the country's first H5N1 outbreak in domestic birds, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Jan 24, 2008

(CIDRAP News)  Outbreaks of H5N1 avian influenza in 15 countries since December 2007 are a potent reminder that the virus is still a global threat, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warned today, as officials in Thailand announced they found the disease in poultry again after a 6-month lapse.